Classroom settings

Room names, capacity and ratios — and why children's birth dates matter more than the label on the door.

For directors and administrators

Your rooms

Open More → Settings, tap Logins & configuration, and expand Classroom Settings. Each room has a Classroom name, Classroom age range, Desired capacity and an optional Student-staff ratio. Tap Save under the rooms when you're done. Directors, assistant directors and admins can change these.

There's no button for adding a new room in the app. If you need another classroom, email support@roundupece.com.

Choose names your staff actually say out loud — Sunflowers, not Room 2B — because the name appears on every attendance screen and in every message about that room. Renaming a room carries everyone in it across: its children, the staff who default to it, anyone clocked in to it right now, and children visiting it for the afternoon. Finished shifts and past reports keep the name the room had at the time.

Age ranges and ratios

Classroom age range describes the room for your staff. It isn't what sets the ratio: RoundUp works out each room's requirement from the dates of birth of the children checked in to it. That's why accurate birth dates on children's profiles matter more than the label on the room.

A child with no date of birth on file is counted using the room's name — a room with infant or toddler in its name is treated accordingly. Fill in birth dates rather than relying on that.

If your center staffs a room more tightly than the state requires, enter it as Student-staff ratio: the number of children per adult, so 4 for 1:4. Ratio Monitoring uses whichever is stricter, yours or the state's, and ignores a looser number.

Capacity

Desired capacity is the number of children you aim to have in the room — an enrollment target. When more children than that are checked in, the classroom screen notes the room is above its desired capacity, but it doesn't mark the room out of ratio: going over a number you set as a goal isn't a staffing problem.

The legal limit on a room's size is your state's maximum group size, and RoundUp checks that one: a room with more children than the group size allows is out of ratio however well it's staffed. Leave Desired capacity blank if you don't use one; nothing is assumed in its place.

Capacity is about the room you've planned and ratio is about supervision. A room can be under its desired capacity and out of ratio at the same time, and usually is when someone calls in sick.

Mixed-age and combined rooms

Rooms holding more than one age group are governed by the youngest child present. This bites hardest at the edges of the day: an early-drop-off room combining an infant with the preschoolers takes on the infant requirement for as long as that child is there.

RoundUp counts each child in the classroom on their profile, so children combined into another room at open or close still count in their own room. See Ratios for how to make a combined room show up in the numbers.

Moving between rooms

Children move rooms through the day, and eventually for good. RoundUp handles the two differently.

• For a few hours — long-press the child in Classrooms and choose Move room. They show in the other room until 7 PM, then return to their home room. The move is recorded for the center rather than the device, so every phone and tablet shows it and Ratio Monitoring counts the child in the room they're visiting. Directors, assistant directors and admins can make the move; teachers see who is visiting. Moving the child again ends the first visit rather than stacking a second one.
• For good — open the child's profile, tap Edit profile and change Classroom. That changes the room everywhere, including in Ratio Monitoring.

Both are for directors, assistant directors and admins. Staff are counted in the room they clocked in to, so a teacher moving to cover another room should clock out and back in to that room.

More: All director guides